Ruthless approach a sign of things to come: Ponting

Australia's ruthless approach in the first test against West Indies was a sign of things to come, said captain Ricky Ponting. Following the Ashes disappointment, Ponting has called on his team to lift their performances as Australia - currently at 4th - try to regain the top spot in the test rankings.

Ponting was perhaps more aggressive than he has been before, declaring for less than 500 on the second day and enforcing the follow-on - only the third time in 63 tests as captain - with a cushion of 252. His decision to go for the jugular paid off, allowing his players two extra days of rest.

"The one thing I spoke about a bit before the game was our ranking and how keen I am for this group of players to do their best and put their best foot forward to improve that," Ponting said. "I think today was our first step forward in being able to do that. We've got a good group of players together, there's a lot of skill around our group at the moment and a few of our younger blokes are starting to have some good performances.

"Winning games tends to make everyone feel a bit better about themselves around the group. We've achieved the things we wanted to this week. As far as the Ashes are concerned, that's long gone, done and dusted. We've all learned from it and hopefully it will make us better cricketers in the future."

There's been much chopping and changing in the Australian squad following a spate of retirements and injuries to key players but Ponting has displayed faith in the current crop of players.

"Generally when a team's having a lot of success there's not a lot of change in the side," he said. "I guess that was one other thing I said before the game: it would be good to keep a group of players together for a long time, because that generally means the team is performing well and individuals within the team are doing well and performing their roles. All going to plan, we won't have too many changes at all over the next 12 months. It would be great to keep the squad together."

Ponting was contemplating enforcing the follow-on as early as day 2, before declaring Australia's innings closed at 480/8. "I felt at that stage that 480 was a pretty big total and if we bowled well and held our chances, there was a chance that we might have been good enough to only have to bat once in the game," he said. "It worked out pretty well from there."

"I thought today that if the bowlers could bowl well at the start of the second innings then the opportunity to finish the game today and for them to have an extra couple of days off leading into Adelaide was pretty appealing," Ponting said. "That's the reason we did it the way we did it.

"We know that West Indies were probably a long way off their best in this game and there is no opportunity for us to be complacent with what we've achieved. It's one Test match out of the summer and I made it pretty clear at the start of this week that it's about us getting our cricket to a level that's going to move us back up those rankings."